


every day i wake up and it's sunday

by paperclipbitch



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: M/M, post series five, this is kind of really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks about it because he thinks about everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every day i wake up and it's sunday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [croissantkatie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/croissantkatie/gifts).



> Spoilers for the series five coda/deleted scene. [Title from _Writing To Reach You_ by Travis.] I got caffeine instead of decaf so I’m writing ficlets for my twitter feed while I’m shaking and my mind’s running at a hundred miles an hour. This is for Katie who knew I was going to do this to our darlings and asked anyway.

“So,” Alex says, “we’re in a perfect universe run by the Devil and you’re still failing miserably at manning up and doing anything.”

Hal’s a man, a man like any other, except that he’s in a reality that isn’t a reality with the horrible suspicion that if he manages to struggle his way back to sort-of-life again he’s going to go back to being a murderer with a few hundred too many years under his belt and he’ll probably rip Tom’s throat out for _fun_.

This reality that isn’t reality is okay as long as you don’t look at it too hard or too long, don’t expect too much of it, and Hal sometimes lies awake at night with his flat teeth and his heartbeat and wonders why he can’t just be content to _stay_ here, breathing and smiling and the man he never got the chance to be, would _never_ have been even if he hadn’t died in a variety of ways because that option would never have been open to him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he tells Alex, sipping at a mug of really good tea. The tea is always really good here, always perfectly brewed, in the same way it only rains when they’re inside and it’s physically impossible to miss a bus and you never find only one sock in the drawer. The Devil knew what he was doing; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the Devil, after all.

Alex rolls her eyes. “We’re going to have to get out of here, sooner or later,” she says. “Well, apparently we do, anyway.”

It’s unspoken that they have to go back, and equally unspoken that they’re going back to die. There’s some things you never have to talk about, and it’s just as well, because nobody wants to have that conversation.

“Yes,” Hal sighs, and it’s strange how being human again hasn’t dealt with half the mental illnesses he was entertaining through his years of vampirism. He still craves blood, despite neither needing nor wanting it, and their bathroom is so clean the enamel is starting to scrub off the bath. Well, you still need hobbies, even in a perfect universe.

“So, while we’re here, Tom’s still wandering around all virginal and doe-eyed,” Alex adds. She flashes a grin at him, bright and dirty and really rather awful. “You should probably do something to fix that.”

“Alex-” Hal begins, because he never ever wants to discuss this and Alex never wants to let it go. You can’t have everything, even in a place designed to euthanize your protests.

“If you shag him in a shared delusion, does it really count as shagging?” Alex continues, tapping her lower lip with a finger. 

“Please stop,” Hal says, and Alex rolls her eyes, props her booted feet on a chair for the way it makes him flinch.

Tom is still Tom; blithely happy, softly haunted, clumsily affectionate, enough to make Hal’s new heart sting. Enough to make his old, old heart crumple like so many dashed hopes.

He thinks about it because he thinks about everything; he thought about it even when he was doing press-ups to keep his mind in one piece, or at least to keep the pieces in the places where they were just about working, a jigsaw one step to the left. Has thought about the flutter of Tom’s long dark lashes against his cheek, the way he’d soften and bite when Hal licked into his mouth. Of course he’s thought about it, the moon bitter bright behind the curtains, counting into the thousands with his hands carpet burning on the floor.

It’s entirely possible that Tom was sent into Hal’s existence by the Devil in the first place, a little payback before the revenge truly started.

“You’re a bloody coward,” Alex remarks, conversational.

“Alright,” Hal replies, because this is the one thing he isn’t willing to fight about, because he’ll end up telling Alex the truth and it’s the last thing Hal has left in his box of deep dark secrets.

He could have done it months ago, in truth, tipped Tom’s chin up and caught him in a kiss for everything he is and everything that Hal isn’t, a thank you and a curse, and he can never do it. Not here, not there, not anywhere, even with Tom’s increasingly thoughtful expressions, the way he clenches his fingers when they’re alone like he’s steeling himself for something different.

Hal can’t kiss Tom because one of these days Tom’s going to have to kill him. He’s a monster, yes; but even monsters have lines, and even Hal at his very worst, blood spilled across his mouth and his hands, expecting a stake in the back any second, couldn’t say _he loved you, you know_.


End file.
